Every person has something in their life that is the pivotal moment. It can be a private, secret thing. A moment of embarrassment or triumph. Or catastrophe. Or mayhem. The event happens like a lightening strike and then the thunder rumbles, rolls, rattles and reverberates long distances. It happens unexpectedly, randomly and without prediction. When its a supremely private thing, like a miscarriage, you are usually alone in the horror and grief. The loss and sorrow. You clean yourself up. You literally flush it away. It is so small and negligent and yet…..it was a person, your person.
But sometimes the lightening strike is massive and impacts a collective group: a house fire, a school shooting, a Category 5 hurricane…..September 11th.
And the collective sorrow, horror and grief is almost too much to comprehend.
I was jarred by an article in the New York Times about “completists“. It made me think about the last moments of the people trapped above the impact zone. The people on the planes. It is such an intimate moment. Looking as the end. Your end. And to be so utterly powerless.
I remember September 11th. Likely anyone over the age of 30 remembers that day. Where they were. How they heard. Watching the news. Stunned. Horrified. Frozen.
There was one small blessing. My oldest son was a kindergartener at St. Patrick’s Catholic School. He was 5. And when the first tower was struck, the school took all of the children to the church and they had Mass. They sang. They prayed. And my son didn’t see any of the images that day. The grace on that day to shield the kids. And the reverberation of that choice by the school has had a lasting impact of all of those kids who are now 30-38 years old.
So many people were lost that day. And so many families impacted. And the reverberation across the War on Terror and all our military families that deployed and served and sacrificed.
Tomorrow is a national day of mourning. A dark day. A day of infamy. My generation’s Pearl Harbor or the day JFK was shot. I will pray for those people above floor 99 of the North Tower and above floor 83 of the South Tower. The people trapped with no way out on a beautiful, gloriously beautiful morning. Looking out over the city and the realizing that their time was finished. The bleakness and the extreme solitude. We should hold them all in our collective hearts and pause for a moment and remember.
